So you’ve made the decision to generate additional income by investing or wholesaling investment real estate, and you’ve purchased the property following a profit formula. What is your plan to market the property to find a buyer?
The percentage of homes purchased by people searching online cannot be ignored. From the National Association of REALTORS (NAR): According to the latest 2009 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 90 percent of buyers used the Internet. as a source of information in your search for housing. With numbers like this, doesn’t it make sense to have a planned internet marketing strategy?
Real Estate Related Websites
One of the best sources for finding buyers for retail homeowners and investment buyers is Craigslist. With 59 million reported visitors as of May 2010, Craigslist (CL) is a great site to promote your property and drive traffic to your business, and it’s free.
Using CL is one of the easiest ways to start an online marketing campaign. I received most of the inquiries and built our buyer list from CL ads over the years.
After posting your property on CL, post the same property on other online real estate related websites. They are mostly free and only require you to fill out an online form for your information. The great thing about some of these other websites is that they automatically list your property on other real estate or “for sale” websites.
Some of my favorite sites are Postlets.com, Houspads.com, Loopnet.com, MyHouseDeals.com, and Sellpoint.com.
video marketing
Make a video of your property. Video marketing is one of the most popular ways to get retail buyers and investors to see your property. A good video only has to be about two minutes long. The most important part, if it’s an investment property, is showing what the financial numbers look like, the investor’s monthly cash flow. Also, in your videos, always remember to give your viewers a “call to action” at the end, by going to a website, filling out a form, etc.
Start your own YouTube page, also free, and start posting your videos there. YouTube will give you a place where you can send people to see the properties in your ads.
Article marketing website or blog website
Have a blog site or article website where you can post articles on various topics in real estate and attract buyers/investors to you. If you already have a blog site, update your articles constantly. It may be once a week, once every two weeks, but as long as you add new material, real estate buyers looking for information will find it.
If you don’t have a blog site, sign up for a free account at Squidoo.com. Squidoo allows the user to create a “lens” for a particular topic. Make a lens of your own using your CL ad wording and you can also embed the video you have on YouTube so readers can watch your video in one place.
social networks
I hope you already have a Facebook account. Yes, you can use FB to keep in touch with friends and family, but you can also create it to use FB as a way to promote your real estate. I have written an article on how to start using Facebook as a marketing tool. Check it out: “Facebook Internet Marketing for Newbies.”
With constant promotion and updating, potential buyers/investors will be funneled to your website or final property page from these various sources.
There are other aspects of internet marketing such as SEO and keyword usage which will be covered in other articles or you can investigate the importance of their usage yourself.
But also remember, that face to face networking is a marketing that should always continue and not be forgotten in this world of internet marketing.
learn internet marketing